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Dengue — A New Problem, Once Again, Again

Dengue persists, as does the multitude of very expensive solutions, such as today’s news about Brazilian mosquito factories. While many solutions are required to fight this huge problem, I still see that we lack an integrated, systems-level view of what is happening epidemiologically, how to address it, and how to communicate the required multi-pronged approach to the large communities where it hits.

I offer an example in the earlier blogpost below of how we attempted to understand, intervene, and communicate a systemic, multi-pronged approach to dengue in Mexico in the 1990s.

Dengue is back, with a vengeance, again. “Dengue has emerged as a worldwide problem only since the 1950s…With more than one-third of the world’s population living in areas at risk for transmission, dengue infection is a leading cause of illness and death in the tropics and subtropics. As many as 100 million people are infected yearly. Dengue is caused by any one of four related viruses transmitted by mosquitoes. There are not yet any vaccines to prevent infection with dengue virus (DENV),” says the dengue website for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.